To address the increasing capacity challenges with Wi-Fi networks, we released Ekahau Site Survey and 3D Planner version 9.0 today.

Enterprise Wi-Fi networks today are under a lot of stress. A badly designed Wi-Fi network will fail under heavier loads. We’ve all seen that at airports, hotels, even hospitals.

We felt there were no tools available in the marketplace that made designing and analyzing high capacity Wi-Fi networks simple and effective. So we spent 2 years building ESS v9.0.

And we’re thrilled with the end result:

Despite adding a lot of stuff, we made it 36% easier to use. Our UX guy Jarno put a lot of work into simplifying the use of ESS. We think it turned out great

We re-wrote the entire auto-planner so it places the APs in optimal locations and doesn’t overpopulate. However, a Wi-Fi engineer should always verify the placement and adjust where needed.

We added more intelligence to auto-planner so it puts less preference on hallway and elevator placement automatically. The auto-planner now disables unnecessary 2.4GHz radios, and sometimes uses dual-5GHz mode as well (on the APs where it’s supported).

We re-wrote the channel planner, and it now disables 2.4GHz radios as well

We put more intelligence in the capacity calculationsincluding adjustable minimum data rates and the number of SSIDs

A huge thanks to all our R&D, especially the research guys, for making a truly amazing product – and for coping with Mikko and myself with our near-impossible demands for functionality and performance.